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Happy Groundhog Day!
You get red pristellas again because they're so awesome. |
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| Vulture Cat |
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Current customers can order here at Nautilus Wholesale
If you're not set up for online ordering contact your sales rep |
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Hey Folks,
Happy Groundhog Day. And I hope Punxsutawney Phil is wrong this year because I want all of my up north customers to be cold and dreary as long as possible since that's great for your fish sales.
In honor of Groundhog Day I'm starting with red pristellas again. I know not everyone reads this every week and I want to make sure everyone sees these fish and has them on their orders. The red pristellas are outstanding, one of the best looking fish in the entire line of GloFish. While I want everyone to have these under blue lights all the time, they're still crazy bright even under regular lighting. Super sturdy and super active. One of the biggest differences between the pristellas and the original GloFish tetras (white skirts) is that the pristellas school a lot tighter. You won't see this in a small tank, but if you can put them in a 3' or 4' tank you'll see a noticeable difference in behavior.
I have Peru fish in here for the first time in ages. Got some really fun stuff that doesn't come in too often. A lot of what used to be Peru staples end up getting shipped out of Colombia since the freight is cheaper from Colombia than Peru. Consequently there's less fish that I need out of Peru, and the orders aren't as frequent.
Vulture cats only come out of Peru, and I ended up getting a couple of larger pieces and a couple dozen smaller. The big ones aren't for sale right now, but you can see the pic up top to see what they'll grow up like. They get at least a foot and a half long, and are predatory and aggressive. This is not a typical catfish that won't bother fish that can't be swallowed. Their native name in some places is machete cat because they bite pieces off of other fish. Big cichlids and armored cats are a few things that might work with them.
Red chromides are in from Singapore this week. Haven't seen these in a long time. These are the more common selectively bred red variety, not the wild ones that occasionally show up from Sri Lanka. They live in brackish to fresh water in the wild but are tank raised with little to no extra salt (we keep them about 3ppt salt). A dwarf cichlid, their max size is just over 3". Relatively peaceful, they're fine with all but the smallest schooling fish, and will be out and about more often if you put these dither fish over the top of them. Makes them more confident that there's not predators around.
Please see Art Parola's article at Reef Builders regarding the Saving NEMO Act. This impacts you even if you only sell freshwater fish. If something like this passes you can expect something like a 'Saving Rainforests' act that will severely curtail freshwater fish. The current proposal isn't limited to wild-collected fish and corals, it shuts down trade in aquacultured species too. Another attempt by animal rights groups to shut down responsible pet keeping.
Please give a call if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Joe Hiduke
Nautilus |
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| I want every GloFish in stores to be under blue lights, but you can clearly see that these red pristellas are awesome even if they're under normal light. |
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| Happy Groundhog Day. I don't have any groundhog fish, but I have hognose cories. This is an old pic but you can see where the name comes from. These aren't cories, they're closely related Brochis cats. |
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| The Brochis 'hognose cories' that I have now are these small far-east farm-raised fish. |
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| Small Vulture Cat |
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| Red Chromides |
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Sabertooth payara are in from Peru. They're small but just big enough to ship well and acclimate in a hurry. These little ones start pounding food right away instead of sulking for weeks or months. Pretty sure you can grow these up to 6" faster than if you start with a 5" since those bigger imports are shy. They come in as Hydrolycus scomberoides. I'm pretty sure that's accurate not because I have any expertise at IDing baby payara but because they'd be more expensive if they were something else. Assuming they're scomberoides they're going to get up to a foot long and eat everything.
Blue tetras are also in from Peru and opposite of the payara in every way. These are small peaceful fish with a neat color scheme that's very different from most other tetras.
The large bleeding hearts in from Peru this week are a lot bigger and nicer than the mediums I've been getting from Colombia. Worth the higher price.
Still have plenty of gold tetras and green neons, and limited numbers of small ruby tetras, all good fish for small tanks. And I have enough pink-tail Chalceus and flag-tail Prochillodus to have have them both on sale this week. Red hooks are nice size, blue hooks look great, and I have lots of small silver dollars.
Florida fish are mired in winter size and availability. Albino glowlights aren't in any box store planogram so they're still nice size. Same thing with the pastel gold neons. Jumbo size on the standard neons is still outstanding. Silvertips and albino silvertips are both in stock but both came in small. X-ray tetras and gold pristellas are both pretty good size. Diamonds, red-eyes, Colombians and head & tail lights are all decent size.
Restocked on some Indo farm-fish. Emperors are back in stock but the size isn't great. Black emperors are slightly bigger. Green fire tetras are OK size and getting some color. A few other far-east fish that look good include tank-raised super limited numbers of awesome yellow-tail Congos, big penguin tetras, small but bright ember tetras, blue kerris, cardinals, and rummynose. |
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| Sabertooth Payara |
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| Blue Tetras |
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| Bleeding Hearts |
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| Green Neons |
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| Albino Glowlights |
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| Silvertips are pretty but small. |
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| Emperor Tetras |
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| Black Emperor |
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| Green Fire Tetra |
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| Yellowtail Congo Tetra |
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Choprai glowlight danios are in stock this week and they look incredible. They act like the more common Florida-bred danios, but they're a lot more colorful. The pic below is OK but they're a lot brighter in the tanks, and should be even nicer in your tanks.
Red panda barbs came in as big as I've seen for imports. They're still not showing a lot of color but they're big enough to color up and this is another fish that should be spectacular in your tanks. Get them now before I decide to keep them for Global.
A few other far-east fish that look good include gold neon rosy barbs, roseline sharks, and a few gold roselines. Skip the cherry barbs this week, they're some of the smallest ones I've seen.
Florida red glass barbs are still one of the best looking fish on the farm but I'm tired of taking their picture every week so you get gold neon rosies this week. The red glass barbs are still almost all male and crazy bright. Black ruby barbs are still coming in but the size isn't great. They're showing a tiny bit of color but very little. They're vibrant compared to odessas, you don't want odessas right now unless you're going to grow them up for months. Giant danios, big pearl danios, longfin leopards, gold zebra danios, and medium tiger barbs are all nice. |
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| Choprai Glowlight Danios |
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| Red Panda Barbs |
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| Gold Neon Rosy Barbs |
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| Medium Tiger Barbs |
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| Pearl Danios |
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Sanke swords are in stock. Nice calico fish with a few males in the tank but they are really, really small. Kokaku red and white koi swords are much bigger and nicer, but nearly all females. Only other regular swords here right now are neons that look OK. For fancier swords, I still have the awesome firecracker swords and very nice vampire swords.
Red tux platies are in stock this week and they look good but not very red platy like. Lots of black (with a green sheen), a lot like the redtail black variatus. But most of your customers are afraid to try to pronounce something like variatus so these will probably sell better.
Other platies that look good include new bumble bees, blue mickeys, yellow calicos, and red tigers.
Best guppies this week are red cobras, green cobras (on special), and lemons.
Gold panda lyretail mollies are nice size and pretty. Black mollies are a lot smaller. The large gold and green sailfin mollies are both very nice. |
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| Sanke Swords |
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| Neon Swordtails |
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| Red Tux(ish) Platy |
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| Bumble Bee Platies |
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| Red Tiger Platies |
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| Gold Panda Lyretail Molly |
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New Peru rainbow severums are big and beautiful. Some of the biggest ones I've had as imports. The pics look OK, the fish look great. But they change color quickly and darken about the second I get them out of a tank for a picture (and of course they're in cubes that are barely translucent). Trust me, they have bright orange napes and blue in the face, super impressive. Probably efasciatus, although severum taxonomy seems to be different every time I revisit it.
Peru altum angels are in stock. They're great size and they're always super sturdy. These are not true altum angels, Peru 'altum' as a trade name for these high-bodied wild silver angels. The primary difference between true altums and Peru altums is that the Peru altums aren't dead. And they're a lot cheaper. I get true altums occasionally, but they're a much touchier fish that isn't suited for a lot of your customers. These Peru fish are so hardy that a lot of breeders cross them into domestic strains to improve the lines.
Sunset Apistos are also in from Peru. Apistogramma atahualpa. Kind of the opposite of the angels, these wild Apisos need to be babied more than the tank-raised fish. They may need live or frozen food to start on, and I'd suggest keeping them in softer water at least untill they settle in.
Florida panda angels and gold angels are very nice at the medium size. Still have a few giant black angels. Koi pearlscales are very nice. Not a ton of orange but they still look fantastic.
Florida cichlids are in real short supply right now. I have plenty of red devils, limited numbers of convicts, and plenty of great looking electric blue acaras. You should take your jack dempsey, firemouth, and green terror tanks and use them for something like the bifasciata or melanura. Check out the pics from my supplier below. They're gorgeous fish when they grow up but you actually have to sell them to your customers since they're nothing but silver now. Also have plenty of snook cichlids, fox cichlids, black-throat macracanthus, and spectabilis.
Restocked on lots of oscars this week. Should be OK with reds, red tigers and assorted in a couple sizes. Got in new far-east electric blue rams that look amazing. Also have new Bolivian rams that came in very nice size with exceptional color. The Florida German blue and German black(ish) rams always look great. |
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Rainbow Severum
A few seconds out of the tank (hence it's fuzzy) |
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Rainbow Severum
By the time the fish is in focus it's dark. They do these almost instantly, but get bright again when they're back in the tank. |
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| Peru Altum |
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| Apisto 'Sunset' |
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| Medium Koi Pearlscale |
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| 3" Red Devils |
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Bifasciatus
Adult breeders that my smalls came from. |
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| Melanura aka 'Belize Synspilum' |
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| Black-Finned Macracanthus |
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| Bolivian Ram |
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| Oscars are back in stock but likely to be limited for a while. |
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| Electric Blue Rams |
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Little venustus came in this week. These might be less exciting than any other cichlid I feature here but they're more likely to sell in your stores. Especially if you call them giraffe cichlids. Also have regular and medium blue dolphin moori that both look really good. Small ones have some color, bigger ones have plenty of color.
Still have quite a few of the insanely bright OB peacocks and haps that came in last week. Every one of them is outstanding. They yellow OBs are my favorite but there's not a single bad looking fish in these tanks. Got most of the bigger ones at one-per-tank so they're holding their color better than previous batches.
Got a few different mbunas on sale this week. The acei are big and look great. Exasperatus are pretty good size too. The yellow labs are smaller than any other mbunas I have but I'm sure they'll outsell all the other types. Go for the gold Tropheops if you want something bigger but still bright yellow/orange. Red zebras and socos are nice size. Cobalts, snow white socos, chipokae and albino auratus are all nice too. |
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| Little venustus are back in stock. |
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| Lg OB Peacock |
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| XL OB Peacock |
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| Gold Tropheops |
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Yellow Labs
Not as nice as the Tropheops but you'll probably get them anyway. |
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| Acei |
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| Brichardi |
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Peru is always good for catfish. Hopefully it's the right time of year, because part of the reason I don't bring Peru as often is that the availability is a lot of brown and silver catfish. So this category is full of new stuff that I'll probably be looking at for a long time.
Lima shovelnose are an exception and I expect them to sell in a hurry. This set is pretty small, but that makes them even more adorable, and they can have tankmates for longer. They do have big mouths, and their stomach distends a ton. They look like a small snake full of a big rat when they eat their fill.
A lot of my Peru fish are new plecos. Adonis plecos are a staple from Peru. These are super cute when they're small, with a cool spotted pattern and a big lyretail. The lyretail stays as they grow up, the spots not so much. And they get big, potentially well over 2'. So they'll be a giant black spikey pleco with a nice lyretail. Great if you have a huge tank or an indoor pond, not so great if your trying to keep them in a 4' tank.
The other Peru staple pleco are L204 flash plecos. A mid-sized species that's easy to house. These are great looking fish that are relatively outgoing.
Mustard-spot plecos are a new one for me out of Peru. LDA031, these look slightly different than the same fish out of Colombia. The spots are more orange than yellow. But there aren't many spots. A smaller species, Planet Catfish says max size around 5" so they shouldn't be getting much bigger. These are omnivores and need plenty of variety in their diet.
The last Peru pleco is another new one for me and I don't know what it is. It's been five weeks in a row of over 50 hours and I'm out of time or energy to ID this fish so if you feel like helping me out send me a note. I think it's on the list as a Peru Peckoltia, came in to me as 'Hypostomus common pleco'. Peckoltia furcata was my best guess without spending a ton of time. If' I'm right than they're going to stay small, under 4", and keep a neat banded pattern with a freckled face.
Cory selection this week incudes some metae and gold/green from last week that are probably good to go. I have new punctatus and arcuatus from Peru this time. They look good, and might be OK to ship next week. Punctatus are smaller (and no more real punctatus than the Colombian fish), but they look solid.
Best cories this week are the tank-raised albino paleatus. Yes, they're just pink fish, but the splotchy pattern on a paleatus ends up being pearly white splotches on a pink background. They're small but very nice. Pretty sure I still have some tank-raised sterbai too.
Definitely still have tank-raised redtail cats, and I'm not too disappointed that they're selling slowly. Maybe less of you are making poor decisions on bringing in big stupid catfish that are better suited for a dinner plate. The ones I have are way over list size, so if you going to make bad decisions with fish these are a good choice, I guess.
Various other catfish that look good include four-line pims, Colombian sharks, spotted raphaels, striped raphaels, Burmese sun cats, Florida-bred gold nigrita, and 4" eupterus that are on sale cheap.
I have so many loaches I could justify a loach category.
Rosy loaches are in stock. I haven't been able find them but I'm told they are definitely on the farm. I don't need to see them to tell you that they are tiny. They always are. Look for a pic on Monday unless they're so small they go through all of my nets.
Zodiac loaches are pretty decent size and look great. They aren't colorful, but they have an interesting pattern, they're social, stay pretty small, and they're not very expensive.
Skunk botias are also in stock this week. This set is pretty small but I'm sure they're gigantic compared to rosy loaches. Shaped like clown loaches but less colorful. They'll eat snails but they won't get as big as a clown loach. Max size is 4" or so.
I should be in good shape on big tiger botias, redtail botias, Sewellia loaches, Borneo sucker hillstream loaches, and maybe a few clown loaches. |
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| Lima Shovelnose |
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| Mustard-Spot Pleco |
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Adonis Pleco Lg
Large is relative, these'll get over two feet long. |
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| Small Adonis Pleco |
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| Flash Pleco |
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Peru Peckoltia
I think? Or Hypostomus? I'm too tired to figure it out but I'd be thrilled to hear your best guest on ID. |
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| Peru Punctatus |
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| Peru Arcuatus |
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| Albino Paleatus |
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| Redtail Cat |
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| Zodiac Loaches |
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| Skunk Loach |
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| Sewellia Loach |
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Albino rainbow sharks are always the best value fish on the farm when they're available. Huge and cheap, these are super impressive.
All of the GloFish sharks are running big too. The blues and oranges stood out the most, but you can't go wrong with any of them.
Gardneri killis look fantastic. They're small but the bigger males are super bright. Farm-raised fish, they don't need soft water or live foods. Pretty similar in care to a gold wonder killi, which I also have.
As usual, medium boesmani rainbows are the best looking rainbow here. They're on sale this week too. I also put the Deepwater Creek splendida on sale. These are outstanding, and it's stupid that they don't sell better. I've mentioned it before but you should try selling them as a fire-fin rainbow or something like that. For smaller rainbows, Madagascars are in stock but the size is mediocre and color is nonexistant. You'll have to wait a while before they have color. Featherfin rainbows are big with excellent fin extensions.
All-male dwarf gouramis are piling up and actually on special this week. Let's hope that doesn't jinx them and have them end up on vet hold. They look great right now and have been here several weeks. Import platinums range from small to very small and they cost more than they're worth. Florida blue gouramis are decent size, not huge but not terrible. These are by far your best choice for a common Florida gourami because they're the only type here. Might have golds and opalines Monday. Skip the pearls, they're terrible right now. Albino and blue paradise are both out standing.
Plenty of eels in stock including nice Burmese tire tracks, good value 4-6" zig zags, and apparently 6-7" fire eels that I can't find.
Various other fish that look good include Asian needle gar, archerfish, 8" royal clown knives, 3" clown knives, red plakat bettas, black ranchus, dwarf puffers, and brown ghost knives. |
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| Albino Rainbow Shark 5" |
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Blue GloFish Sharks
All the sharks are running big. |
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| Gardneri Killi |
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| Gold Wonder Killi |
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| Deepwater Creek Rainow |
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| Medium Boesmani |
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| Madagascar Rainbows |
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All-Male Dwarf Guoramis
On sale this week. |
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| Albino Paradise |
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| Dwarf Puffers |
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| Asian Needle Gar |
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| Black Ranchus |
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Shrimp, Snails & Other Inverts
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Assassin snails are back in stock this week. I don't have a lot but I should have more on Tuesday. Same with orange rabbit snails too.
Florida mystery snail availability got a lot better. Golds are still limited but I've got a nice mix, and plenty of blues, ivories, and blacks. Probably getting more golds Monday.
I have a few jade shrimp in from Singapore. They're a mix of some pale green shrimp and some shrimp that might turn green but are mostly translucent now. Red crystal shrimp are nice, but these are the Indo ones that are less bright than the Singapore shrimp. Blue velvets are small but have good color.
Still have very limited numbers of Borneo panther crabs and patriotic crabs that love America. |
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| Assassin Snails |
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| Blue Mystery Snails |
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Red Crystal Shrimp
They're Indo this week and not as bright or cleanly banded as Singapore shrimp. |
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Black Rili Shrimp
They're always more blue than black. |
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The Saltwater stock-list gets sent out on MONDAY afternoon.
In saltwater, we offer tons of top-of-the-line corals. If you need really nice frags to sell for $10-15, we've got you covered. If you want a $400 show piece unique Australian brain corals, we've got that too. Tons of the coral frags are aquacultured in-house and are named lineage pieces of various SPS and LPS. Import frags that are MADE in-house are also available, and are great options to get slightly bigger pieces that customers want like torches, hammers, blastos, acans, zoas, etc. |
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